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The birth story – Part 1

Let me start by saying that the twins were actually due in mid October. Anyway, during one of my ultrasounds, we saw the doc frowning in concern. He said baby B wasn’t growing the way they would like. It was probably a good idea to pull them out soon. Before we knew it, they went ahead and scheduled my C-section for a date just 10 days away! That is what I mentioned in this post, that the babies were coming in 10 days.

Those 10 days were precious to us. From believing we had at least a month to get things together to coming to terms to having not more than 10 days, it was a lot to take in. We were completely unprepared, we were yet to buy car seats, the crib, the works. We decided to work on our massive ‘to do’ list from the next morning.

Life is funny though. The very next morning after I wrote that post, I woke up at 7 am and thought I felt some dampness in my underwear. TMI, I’m sorry, but this post is going to be full of it. I didn’t even bother waking Mint at that point. I turned to my side and tried going back to sleep. After an hour, I thought the dampness was more evident. Or was I imagining it and reading too much into nothing?

Strange things happen when you are pregnant and the dampness wasn’t something that made me bat an eyelid. At this point though, I sleepily mentioned to Mint that I thought I felt damp. Not wet, mind you, just a little damp.

He woke up right away and told me he was sure my water broke. Let’s go to the hospital, he said. I almost laughed. You see, my idea of water breaking was a gush of fluid running down your legs. Not a minutely damp underwear.

I agreed to call the hospital though. They said they would like to examine me and asked me to come in right away. Really? Okay, I told them we would be there soon, but I certainly wasn’t serious about the ‘soon’ bit. I continued to stroll around the house sleepily after that and showed no urgency to leave.

I told Mint we would head out for an Afghani lunch to one of my favourite places after my check up at the hospital. I was dreaming of their bolani. He kept shaking his head and telling me to listen to him, there would be no lunch, the babies would be coming today. I dismissed it. I was just 34 weeks. I saw no signs of labor at that point. This was going to be just another check up. After all, we had another 10 days for my scheduled C-section.

I decided to fix myself some breakfast, only to see Mint shaking his head again ,asking me not to. I had chosen to have a c-section (different post on why I made that choice) and that required 8 hours of fasting. He told me it was safer to fast until I got done with my examination, because what if they had to go ahead with the c-section today? I was so confident that this check up would lead to nothing that I insisted on eating.

He looked so uncertain as I continued to fix my sandwich that I decided to let go of my plans. Instead, I grabbed a cookie and told him I would stop at that. He told me how pointless he thought that piece of cookie was, so after nibbling on it, I let go of that too.

I then went for a relaxed shower. I wondered if I should shave my legs, because God forbid I actually was in labor, I didn’t want to be operated upon if I had hairy legs. Yes, talk about being vain. It was too much effort to bend with my humongous belly though, so I decided to let go. I would make Mint shave my legs later. I was also going to get my eyebrows done the next day, so I would save all the cleaning up for tomorrow, I thought.

Mint, mom and I then drove to the hospital. I walked to the labor and delivery unit leisurely, only to have one of the nurses tell me they had been waiting for me since the time I called. They whisked me away and strapped me to the monitors right away, an exercise I was very used to since I used to go for my non stress tests thrice a week.

A doctor came by my room and told me he would ‘check’ me and send the fluid to the lab for testing to find out if it indeed was amniotic fluid. He had just about begun the check when he let out a little laugh and said, ‘Okay, you’ve definitely ruptured. I can totally see it. I don’t even need to send the fluid for testing. You can wait while we go and prep the OT for the c-section’. With that, he walked away. I was in SHOCK.

Wait while we prep the OT? Right now? Did he mean the babies are coming today? I had strolled in to the hospital not carrying a thing other than my wallet. And how will we manage the babies? We didn’t even have car seats to take them home. We had to make a zillion purchases before we could begin our life with them. How would we do it? They said my water broke? How can I possibly not feel a thing?

It was a public holiday that day so the hospital was a little understaffed. I was concerned about how everything would go, but as usual, Mint seemed all zen and kept throwing the ‘I told you so’ line at me, other than making jokes about me going into labor on labor day. Me? I was also coming to terms with the fact that I had hairy legs, undone eyebrows and unwashed hair. The first few pics I would have with my babies would have me looking like crap. Oh well, I shouldn’t be so shallow, I told myself. It was a good idea that the images would feature the ‘real’ me and depict me in all my bareness.

In a few minutes, one of the nurses came by to tell me they were setting everything up and would take me in soon. She just wanted to know when I ate last. I told her when I had had dinner the previous day. To double check, she asked me if I had eaten nothing after that. Okay, fine, I had had half a cookie a few hours ago. She looked skeptical the moment I said it.

20 minutes later, she was back to tell me they couldn’t operate on me till evening because of that half a cookie. I needed to be fasting for 8 hours straight. But that was just half a cookie, I told them. She said it wouldn’t work. Great. Of course, Mint had a million opportunities to tell me, ‘I told you so’.

Mom, Mint and I continued hanging around in the room, talking about the sudden change of events. By around 2 in the afternoon, I could feel the onset of strong, painful contractions. They told me it was only going to get worse from here. I was going into active labor since my water had broken a few hours ago. They could do nothing but wait to make sure I complete my 8 hours of fasting.

By 4 pm, I was in a hell lot of pain. The monitors showed I was having full strength contractions that were less than 2 minutes apart. I even made Mint take a picture of my contraction charts so I could have proof of having endured those full strength contractions. I am a drama queen, I know. And they were still forcing me to endure this instead of going ahead with my surgery because of that half a bleddy cookie! They kept saying they didn’t want to take any chances. Jeez!

Another 2 hours passed and they *finally* said they could take me in. They gave Mint a clean set of scrubs and a face mask to get into since he was going to be in the OT with me. My mom was pacing around nervously. She said it was going to be nerve wrecking for her to wait outside the operation theater all by herself. We had to keep asking her to calm down. None of us could really believe we would be seeing the babies soon. Babies that were due to arrive in this world in the middle of October were being pulled out in the first few days of September. This, when they were already having growth restrictions in the womb. I hoped everything would turn out okay as they wheeled me in.

10 Responses to “The birth story – Part 1”

Wow babe , I didn’t even realize you were ha in full blown contractions when I texted you while you were waiting for the c section ! Love reading this by the way, even when I know the whole story. Such a great glimpse at exactly what was going through your head at that moment.

Anusaid

Congratulations PepperMint!! I had been waiting for this post ever sine you mentioned they are only 10 days away. So happy to see them even though it’s just their backs 🙂 I can imagine your shock of having them earlier than the scheduled c-section which itself was much earlier than the actual due date, that too when you are so unprepared 🙂 Welcome to mommy world and the many more surprises to come.

Deepasaid

you’re a brave gal darling and I’m hoping to come see you real soon and hug(ok hold gingerly I suppose) my bachchas too. Both of them are utterly butterly adorable in that photu and loved their monikers too.

P.S. M has been pestering me non stop about wanting to meet you guys but I’ve had to restrain him till every bit of everybodys’ colds were done with. Ain’t nobody gonna give sniffles to my darling C&C ok!

Aaand I am back… to commenting, I mean. I should be refraining… but bwahaha…. this sounds SO you! My sympathies all the same, hairy legs and undone eyebrows don’t seem like the best way to get into labour but then like we discussed, that’s the least of anyone’s concerns at that point.
So you did have to undergo contractions indicating natural delivery and then undergo C-sec too? Jeez! Talk about not missing anything… almost!